1. The document summarizes key events and insights from J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. It includes 59 discussion points about Holden Caulfield's experiences at Pencey Prep school, interactions with various characters, and reflections on themes of maturity, phoniness, and death of his brother Allie. 2. Many entries describe Holden's negative views of various institutions and people as "phony" and highlight how he struggles with questions about his identity and future. 3. By the end, the document suggests Holden has matured slightly and come to realize he is also "phony" like those he criticizes, showing growth in his self-awareness by the conclusion

1. Genna Greco
Period 3
Catcher In the Rye Study Guide
1. I don’t feel he should be where he is because he seems relatively normal,
but not as normal as everyone else.
2. Holden thinks it is a “terrible” school and “phony”, but oddly respects the
academic standards.
3. Holden liked Selma Thurmer because she’s not a “phony” and doesn’t care
about what a powerful guy her father, the headmaster, is.
4. Holdens visit to Old Spencer causes him to think twice about leaving the
school and he grills him about his future. He regrets the visit when he
enters the room and sees the intensity of the sickness.
5. Holden reacts by leaving because he did not want to be lectured.
6. Holden writes without restraint, saying whatever he please, yet talks
without letting everything that he’s feeling out.
7. He is worried about where the ducks will go in the winter, much like his
worries about his own future.
8. Holden lies to both the people in the story and himself. For instance, when
he lies to Ackley about the fight with Stradlater and when he lies to Old
Spencer about his reason for leaving.
9. Ackley and his constant barging in to his room annoy Holden. At times, he
is also disgusted by his behavior.
10.Holden asks these questions because he is taking out Jane, a girl Holden has
previously had a crush on.
11.The mitt is important because Allie used to write poems on it and he died
several years before.
12.Allie wrote poems in green ink on the mitt so he would have something to
read when he was bored in the field.
13.Holden reacted badly to Allies death by sleeping in the garage the night
Allie died and punching out all the windows.
14.Stradlater tells him he made Jane late for her curfew and acts arrogantly
when Holden asks about the date, making Holden angry and causing him to
pick a fight.
15.Holden tells Ackley he fought with Stradlater because Stradlater was saying
rude things about Ackley so he stuck up for him.
16.Holden tells the mother of his classmate that his name is Rudolph Schmidtt
and brags about how modest and popular her son is. Holden said he was
leaving the school for surgery on a brain tumor instead of telling her he got
kicked out.

2. 17.Instead of calling Jane Gallagher, Holden eventually calls Faith Cavendish,
a girl who he got the number of from a friend at a party. He calls her
because he is feeling “pretty horny” and she is supposedly a good time.
18.No, he is not as mature and sophisticated as he thinks he is because he is
continuously lying and acting otherwise.
19.No, he lies to her and says he only wanted to go for a drink but could only
see her right then and not any other day.
20.Yes, they can both be true because one statement is just thinking about the
idea of sex in his mind and the other actually comprehends the action of it.
21.He finds himself attracted to Bernice, the blond one, because he thought she
was an amazing dancer and the best looking out of her other two friends.
22.To upset the three girls, Holden keeps claiming he is seeing movie stars so
they get all worked up, even though none are there.
23.Some things Holden liked about Jane were that she kept all her kings in the
back row in chess, he way her mouth moves when she talks, and how she
put her hand on the back of his neck when they went to the movies.
24.Yes, I do think she is a realistic character by the way Holden portrays her
and her actions to us.
25.Holden begins to discuss the topic of where the ducks in the lagoon go in
the wintertime with the cab driver.
26.Holden feels that there is something phony about the way that Ernie plays
and believes that since he is such a big shot, he has too much arrogance to
be admired. Holden is scrambling skill and arrogance together.
27.I do believe that he applies this attitude to most adults.
28.Holden runs from Lillian Simmons because he felt that she was being
phony and probably just wanted to check up on his older brother whom she
used to see.
29.Holden feels he would go right up to the guy and claim that he stole his
gloves and when he denied it, he would walk right into the closet and take
them back. He then digresses on the topic of getting in a fistfight.
30.He really just ignores the fact that someone stole his gloves and leaves the
matter alone.
31.Holden feels like a coward for leaving Ernie’s and decides to walk all the
way home.
32.Maurice suggests that Holden have a prostitute he knows sent up to his
room.
33.Holden lies to her when she comes into the room and said he recently had
surgery so he’d prefer to just talk rather than do anything.
34.Her name is Sunny and it does not suit her because she has an attitude and
is not a very happy girl.
35.Holden copes with the guilt about Allie by thinking about a time in the past
where his brother wanted to tag along with him and his friend and changing
it by imagining that he actually let him come.

3. 36.Holden feels that the Disciples were useless and believes religion is phony.
37.Holden says that ministers seem very phony when they talk using a
different voice than usual.
38.When the two arrive, Holden refuses to pay them the extra 5 dollars and
eventually Maurice hits him and they take his money.
39.Holden meets two nuns visiting in the area who he gives money to.
40.The little boy was singing “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.”
41.Holden bought Phoebe the record “Little Shirley Beans” because he
thought she would appreciate it.
42.It seems as though he starts off the time with Sally as having a good time
but as it progresses he begins to get irritated by her actions and stops
enjoying the date.
43.He sees the movies as phony, seeing the emptiness and shallowness of
them. He is not opposed to going to the movies, though.
44.Carl Luce used to say he knew who all the “flits and lesbians” were, just by
looking at them. Luce then suggests that Holden needs psychoanalysis,
considering his father is a psychoanalyst.
45.Phoebe puts the pieces of the broken record in her drawer of her night table
and saves them for Holden.
46.Phoebe got angry and upset when she learnt he was kicked out and
mentioned how angry their father would be when he learnt this.
47.James Castle was a student that Holden went to school with who called
another boy a name and refused to take it back no matter what the boy or
his friends did to him. He eventually just jumped out of his window and
killed himself. Mr. Antonelli carried James Castle’s body and covered it
with his own jacket, making Holden respect him.
48.In response to Phoebes question, Holden says he likes Allie and sitting
there talking to her.
49.Phoebe says that he’s dead, reminding him of something he is already
aware of and begins to say that if someone’s dead then its not really
something you like.
50.Phoebe says that the lights were on because she couldn’t sleep and when
the mother smelt the cigarette she said she lit one and took just one puff.
Then, she asks the mother if Holden will be home Wednesday, to cover
him.
51.Holden begins to hysterically cry when Phoebe gives him the Christmas
money and then leaves to Mr. Antolini’s house for the night.
52.I think they got married because they are both “very intellectual” and got
along well. Also, because Mrs. Antolini was said to be “lousy with dough”
and Mr. Antolini is wealthy.
53.Holden woke up when he felt Mr. Antolinis hand petting his head.
54.Holden didn’t seem to be bothered by the Christmas preparations because
he said walking down Fifth wasn’t too bad with all of the fake Santas and

4. Salvation Army bell ringers. When he sees the two men unloading the
Christmas tree, all he does is laugh.
55.Every time he would step down, he felt as though he would never make it
to the other side of the street and would keep going down and down until he
just disappeared.
56.Holden began talking to “Allie”, saying things like “Please don’t let me
disappear” and when he would reach the other side of the road he would
thank him.
57.Holden gets angry when he sees the obscenities written on the walls of the
school and tries his best to get rid of all of them because he didn’t want it to
corrupt the children’s minds.
58.I feel as though Holden has matured slightly throughout the novel and I
think at the end he finally started to realize that he was just as phony as he
said all the others were. I think that Holden wanted people to believe that
was really mature when in fact he was a scared kid and by the end of the
book he's finally able to admit it.
59.Yes, because I think Holden ended the story where he was at his happiest.